at the site. protesters chanted slogans calling for the ouster of bahrain's prime minister. a small british diplomatic team is in libya talking with the rebels. discussions are under way to release security troops. thank you for watching state of the union. i'm candy crowley in washington. up next, "fareed zakaria gps". this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. i'll give you my take on what the arab uprisings mean for al qaeda in a moment but first let me give you a preview of the show. today we'll take you inside the mind of the gadhafis. perhaps a scary place to be but we'll talk to a man who has spent many hours with both moammar gadhafi and even more

with his son saif gadhafi. what are they thinking. first an all-star gps panel to talk about revolutions abroad and in america over budgets and politics. nick kristof back from the middle east. eliot spitzer familiar with the problems of balancing budgets. david frum. chrystia freeland. what in the world. we found a nation even more divided than our own. finally we'll take a last look at the ultimate mubarak bling. i'll explain. now, there's an interesting debate about whether the events in the middle east are good for the united states, the west, good for peace and stability, but i think there can be little dispute about whom they are bad for. al qaeda. in fact the arab revolts of 2011 represent a total repudiation of al qaeda's founding ideology. think about it. for 20 years al qaeda has said that the regimes of the arab

world and massive dictatorships and the only way to overthrow them is to support al qaeda and its terrorism. then in a few weeks the people of the arab world have overturned two governments by means of nonviolent demonstrations and begun a process reform and revolution that will alter the basic bargain between the ruler and ruled in the middle east. al qaeda insisted that people follow its path to create a perfect islamic state drawing from the 7th century and reject democracy and freedom as western imports. well, so far the demonstrations have been strikingly secular, largely devoted to causes against corruption and dictatorship and affirmed the importance of democracy and freedom for arabs. of course there are some important islamic moments within these societies and they will surface and some of them will gain strength. they too seem to want democracy and in any event they seem balanced by many nonislamic

groups. the basic point is that al qaeda seems to have little appeal in the muslim world and even in arab countries where it originated. polls anirm. reporting suggests this. and the revolution confirms it. there's no hankering in the middle east for a return to the 7th century. only a desire for jobs, pluralism, freedom, good government. now al qaeda has embraced violence precisely because it has no political strength or strategy. it cannot bring a million people into tahrir square in cairo to demand the ouster of mubarak. it hopes to shock and awe people with spectacular acts of violence. but these too are harder and harder to pull off as the public turns against them and governments all over the world pursue them. now, i've been making these points for years but it is as if we're all much more comfortable being terrified of a phantom foe that's seven feet tall. let's look one more time at the

facts. since 9/11, al qaeda has been unable to launch a single attack in the united states. small groups of people inspired by it have manage ad few smaller attacks in some cities in europe and the middle east and asia. but even these have been getting fewer and fewer and further and further between. most terrorism is now the product of lone would be suicide bombers rather than an organized political movement with a central figure or central organization. political support for al qaeda, islamic terrorism and suicide bombings has been dropping in every muslim country in the world on which we have polling data. if the arab world becomes more democratic those numbers will don't fall. in iraq support for political violence is tiny, lower than it is in the united states. so can we all take a deep breath, stop cowering in fear and put the problem of islamic terrorism in perspective. it's real but it is not going to

take over the world any time soon. let's get started. we have so much to talk to our panel about today from the strife in the middle east to the strife in the middle west of the united states. joining me are "new york times" columnist, nick kristof who is back from cairo and bahrain. eliot spitzer the former governor of new york and now first anchor of cnn's prime time show in the arena. chrystia freeland the global editor-at-large for reuters and david frum, one time speech writer for george w. bush. nick, give us your sense on the ground, you know, most recent reactions that you've had. >> well, it feels like one of these years when everything is contagious. 1848 or 1989 and just every country you go to you see these

explosions. when oman began to blow up, oman was maybe the last place in the world that felt like it was going to explode and now it has as well. and what also just is maybe hard to convey is just the degree to which this is all bubbling up and being supported from one country to the next. america isn't part of the conversation in many of these places. i was just awed the way egyptians were going into libya to support the democracy movement there, sending doctors, sending supplies. and, you know, i hope that contagion will continue. >> i want to pick up on something nicholas just said. it's amazing what's not be at the center of these revolutions. the united states, zionism, israel, the issues that had been at the center of the rhetoric of the outsiders has not at all been part of what has motivated this organic wellington up of i.

>> it's one of those moments when those cultural relativism arguments are made, it's a different culture, the people really don't want democracy, they don't want to be free. we shouldn't impose our western values and imperialist way on they people. those arguments have been shown to be hollow. as nick was saying this really is a revolution of the people not just of the streets but, you know, of the new technical elite of the society. they want the same freedoms we do. >> also a revolution driven by economic failure. if these regimes haven't been able to deliver like chinese economic growth the story would be different. in the egyptian case when hosni mubarak took power the egyptian standard of living was two 1/2 times greater than china. the thing i worry about, one of the things that really worries

me is all of the economic problems that led to these crises are all going to be there the day after. the regimes are going to -- the regimes will have some expectations to meet these problems and what happens if that doesn't happen? what is the next wave of governments? >> i want to ask you something, nick. you have written very optimistically about all of this. i just wonder. you say how can we not support democracy when these people are willing to-die-for it. are you wanting to get rid of a bad regime is one thing. being able to set up a liberal democracy with a functioning rule of law and constitutionalism is another. have you seen things there that gives you a lot of hope that these places will not turn into, you know, liberal democracies, dysfunction, anarchy? >> i hesitate to say. you wrote the book on liberal democracies. look the history of overthrow of

dictators or departure of dictators there will be problems. one of these countries may be yugoslavia. or a congo. the end of the regime there and leading to the worst civil war in post-world war ii history. but at the same time in general it seems to me that the history is that, you know, there are bumps and they get over them. i don't think we really have a choice. maybe especially when you're out there and you just see the passion that people have and the willingness to support ideas that we emulate. how can we take a position other than supporting that. i guess i would also say that i think we overdo the islamist boogieman and that has certainly been a factor. much less of a factor now than it was five or ten years ago, and, you know, maybe my favorite moment covering all this, i was in tahrir square.

it was being attacked by mubarak thugs. i was in a field hospital there. i was photographing this guy who had been hospitalized seven times in 24 hours fighting these mubarak thugs and each time he would go off and get attacked again. i ran into this guy and i wheelchair who lost boston his legs. wheeled his wheelchair in to fight for democracy. in a situation like that how could we be doing anything else but coming on the side of those people. >> the skeptics are mostly on the right. i was struck by the fact that eliot was presenting this very eloquent harry truman, john f. kennedy defense of spreading democracy in the middle east and the two conservatives on the show very cautious. and on the further right and i sense there's outright hostility. >> yes. there are a lot of ideologically elements. some are not so nice. some is a mistrust. whenever you have 300,000

muslims in the streets that has to be a bad thing. some of it is having been burned on iraq. people -- whether you acknowledge or not people say things because they feel the need to be consistent with the things they said with iraq, they recite old lines. other people hear the old lines and go that didn't come out so well the last time i gave that show maybe i should look for a new script this time. one more thing when you look at iraq,ing right now things do look stable. whether the regime has governed with a light hand compared to others you think with all that was invested in iraq, your look at the results and how disappointing they were, if that's what you get with this huge american infusion, it was not wasted it was a real effort and this is the result. now what happens in egypt when you try to go through that process with a poor country, one in seven illiterate. >> isn't it a difference between a revolution from the regime change from outside and regime

change from within. isn't the right analogy eastern europe or post-soviet russia. post-soviet russia didn't go so well. a lot of people argued that's because there wasn't enough support of the transformation. >> we don't know which the better analogy is. given that uncertainty i come down with nick. if there's this organic home grown drive for democracy how can we not thereabout to support it if we believe in anything at all. that's where -- >> we have smuggled in something. we know what there's a drive against. when you say they are fighting for democracy. you don't know that. you hope they are fighting for democracy. you hope they even -- maybe they don't have a positive agenda at all. sometimes not one more day of this. >> we got to take a break and when we come back we'll talk about the far less consequential but important budget battles in the united states when we come back. >> american society will go

through a great shake down and there's going to be squeezes on all kinds of things. >> i don't see squeezes on welfare. >> look at the health care. >> that's not the place you should squeeze? >> woman: good night, gluttony-- a farewell long awaited. good night, stuffy. >> ( yawning ) >> good night, outdated. >> ( click ) >> good night, old luxury and all of your wares. good night, bygones everywhere. >> ( engine revs ) >> good morning, illumination. good morning, innovation. good morning, unequaled inspiration. >> ( heartbeats ) homeowners -- rates have been going up, but you can still refinance to a fixed rate as low as 4.75% at lendingtree.com.

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try capzasin-hp. it penetrates deep to block pain signals for hours of relief. capzasin-hp. take the pain out of arthritis. we must work together to bring our spending in line with reality. we were elected not to make the easy decisions to benefit ourselves but to make the difficult ones that will benefit our children and our grandchildren. >> and we are back with our all-star panel, nick kristof, eliot spitzer, david frum and chrystia freeland. from the mid-west, from the mid east to the midwest. is the wisconsin battle one that a, governor walker will win and more broadly are these governors going to be able to take control of their budgets, put the unions on the defensive. how do you read things? >> don't know if you will win or lose technically in getting his legislation through that will

end collective bargaining in wisconsin. the unions are playing defense which is not a good place when you're in politics. having said that. the public is beginning to take the other side, 60% are saying you know collective bargaining is a right. i think at the end of the day the governor went a bridge too far and made a big mistake. >> he's being judged on style not substance. the issue is work rules. the example that i used to bring home was going on wisconsin. they have a rural county on the shores of michigan where they have a juvenile detention center with six employees and one inmate. the county wants to close the juvenile detention center and pay another county and they are not allowed to do that under the terms of the contract. i don't care what those six employees receive on pay and benefits. the problem is the existence of the facility. the problem is the structure of rules. it makes it impossible to ration enamelly administer public services. >> you would go further, you would argue, i assume that public sector workers should not

be able to unionize because in effect they are on both sides of the bargaining table. >> wouldn't want to be quite as categorical as that but we should have a big burden of suspicion against it. and i lot of cases its led to great waste of money. by the way a great failure of governmental institutions. people on the left who want government to work should be aware one of the reasons government works so much worse today than it did 30 and 40 years ago because of the spread of these work rules. >> to comment on your point on being on both sides of the bargaining table. i think we need to be careful about making that argument because there are a lot of actors in society that vote, that contribute to political campaigns, and also have economic relationship with the government. and a lot of those actors are big business. the health care industry, ge, for example, oil companies, financial services. these are huge contributors to political campaigns.

a lot of people from this industry go into top government jobs. so we just have to be a little bit careful about saying just because you vote for politicians, which all of us do, doesn't mean that you can't get an economic benefit from them. >> that's a feature. american society will go through a great shakedown and there will be squeezes on concentrated interests. in the health care sector. >> what about the guys who are responsible for the financial crisis. >> america spend more in gdp in the health care sector. >> teachers are the heart of darkness. >> i agree with you. the give backs are necessary. we need to get rid of the rigidity and manage better. these things are necessary. the way to get there is not say to workers you can't bargain collectively. that's to change and take away a right rather than to focus on

the changes we need. >> don't judge the struggle because you don't like governor walkers manner. >> turn to our middle east -- >>it's right that's only existed since the 1960s, fdr believed that public employees should not be able to unionize for resizely this issue. >> this is not a first amendment. let's not confuse this with the first amendment. we confuse the debate which should be about things that david talked about. we need flexibility. we need to be efficient. collective bargaining with civil service isn't the issue. >> when you travel around the world, you know as i do, i'm always struck by how much new competition there is coming at every level. i was traveling to singapore and watching this ad about singapore and real estate developer and at the bottom of the crawl as they call it in television it said maximum 20% income tax, no capital gains tax, no value added tax. you think everyone is trying to hustle for the same people.

>> i think that maybe we don't do as good a job as some other countries in distinguishing between consumption and investment. one of the things that troubles me about this larger budget debate in this country is that instead of pairing away at consumption we're trimming the investment in education and infrastructure which is precisely what asian countries have been so good at in investing in. >> the reason why we squeezed our investment budgets they have been devoured by health care. if you unleash the process of change on the health care sector which will be very painful. a lot of less money for pharmaceutical companies, doctors, nurses. if governor walker loses. this is a real test can america make the changes -- >> david, i totally disagree. we see no willingness from the governor -- i agree with your analysis. i don't see any republicans out there saying let's take on the health care industry. let's take on -- >> i'll say it. >> you're not in office.

i think what's happening here goes back to our middle eastern discussion which is part of what happens is the distributional effect. one thing we've seen in america in the pa 69 years is the people at the very top taking a huge share of the increase in productivity of the nation and the middle class getting squeezed. >> we're going to have to go. i have to ask you this, eliot, you are passionately concerned about the future of the country, future of the state, future of the city, huge canvas new york city, mike bloomberg will not be there forever. will you run for mayor of new york? >> don't believe what you read in the newspapers. if it's on tv believe it not in the newspapers. >> wait. is that shermanesque. >> i love doing what i'm doing at cnn. >> the next stage is an exploratory committee. we'll be right back. e.

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time now for what in the world segment. here in the united states we spend a lot of time arguing about politics. the divisions have hardened, the parties are at odds and it feels like sometimes the country is split in two. but we should take solace. there's a nation far more divided and it may have some lessons for us. belgium hasn't had any government for 266 days and counting. when the northern european nation went to the polls almost nine months ago the party that won the most seats was called

the new alliance. their main aim is to split the country in two not politically but physically. you see a slight majority of belgium's population, the flemish speak dutch and live noirnt. a minority speaks french and lives in the south of the nation in wallonia. the winning party wants to take their majority and split into an independent nation. already the country is divided at every level. almost every public service you can think of, schools, hospitals and they are split along the lines of language. there are french schools and flemish schools. then there's brussels. it's the capital of belgium. brussels is french speaking why it's also the capital of the european union. if you partition the country the french speaking capital would end up in the dutch speaking flounders. what clear.

you wouldn't normally compare belgium with iraq but that's the country with the previous longest record without a government. for 449 days the iraqi parliament couldn't decide how to form a government and it took another 40 days for that government to assume power. iraq's democratic experiment was maligned. the belgiums had more practice. the country gained its independence and started its current form of government in 1830. it's a parliamentary democracy where the king is the constitutional monarch. so what should americans do if the government stalls? if divisions make it impossible to get on with the business of the country? well, what the people of belgium seem to do is grin and bear it. some bell gums quite literally did it. stripping down in the cold winter to make a point. whatever that point was, however got lost in the stunt, i'm afraid to say.

on february 17th the day when by some counts belgium overtook iraq as the country with the most days without a government, belgiums marked it in style. street parties. d.j.s turning out music. costumes. they had it all. and there was some political messages. in dutch speaking flounders locals handed out free french fries while in french speaking wallonia you could swig free beer. some had a government website. government not found. the requested government was not found in this country. please come back well later. we live in an era of unrest and political uncertainty in many parts of the world. so you have to hand to it the people of belgium. they are taking it in stride with an admirable sense of humor. and we'll be right back. >> translator: libya i felt was

safe in somehow he made that internal struggle he had. he made a choice. i'm the son. clan blood is powerful in the middle east and north africa. he made the choice. if my father is under attack. if my brothers die i will stay and die with them. and 24/7 help from award-winning customer support to take control of your finances and your life. tap into the power of revolutionary mobile apps. to trade wherever. whenever. life isn't fully experienced sitting idly by. neither is investing. e-trade. investing unleashed. [ ding ] [ in korean ] how may i help you? do you have something for pain? ♪ oh, bayer aspirin? oh, no, no, no... i'm not having a heart attack. it's my back. trust me. it works great for pain. [ male announcer ] nothing's proven to relieve pain better than extra strength bayer aspirin.

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[ male announcer ] ask your doctor if cialis for daily use is right for you. for a 30-tablet free trial offer, go to cialis.com. what we've heard from the gadhafi family in recent weeks can be sum riced, rambling speeches that verge on the maniacal. but the son, he's promising rivers of blood in his speeches. that sound neither liberal or progressive. to help us sort through all of this, benjamin barber who resigned two weeks ago from the board of the gadhafi foundation and spent much time with both father and son. barber is a distinguished american academic. welcome. so, when did you first meet

moammar gadhafi? >> in 2006, just a few years after the regime had yielded its weapons of mass destruction and was seeking to improve relationships with europe and the united states and that was a two way process, when they were still negotiating lockerbie and when gadhafi had come in from the cold as the head of a rogue state and became a potential oil supplier for the west. >> when i met him i thought he was on drugs. i thought it was a very strange, had a hallucinogenic moment. >> two things. he has a very weird affect. as long ago as the 1980s i was part of a television program that interviewed him in the sderot and he doesn't look at you in the eye. his face is slack. he speaks and i kind of a very low mumble and the affect is certainly weird. >> is he -- but he strikes you

as intelligent? >> highly intelligent. my own view is that a fool and a lunatic could not stay in power for 42 years in a tribal state like libya. >> you knew saif much better. >> much better. he was a young man, 38 now. he was a student for most of the time i knew him at the london school of economics. and we interacted the way, you know, i might with other young scholars and young students. >> how did he strike you. >> he struck me as somebody who was torn from within with perhaps three different views of the world. you have the scholar, you have the gadhafi son who we saw in the rivers of blood speech and then you also had a typical corrupt son of a middle eastern play bio. polish and russian financial connection, make lot of money, part of the oil industry, developing hotels. he had these three pieces inside of him kind of at war with one

another. i mostly saw the young scholar, the young liberal the head of the gadhafi foundation. these other two people were there the one who won the battle clearly last week was the gadhafi son. >> is that what you thought when you heard the rivers of blood speech? >> die. i thought foolishly about the godfather. the character played the young son of the godfather who had gone straight who was a wore her joorks civilian, not part of the family but when his father came under attacking changed sides joined him and eventually became the godfather himself in the most demonic and brutal of the godfathers. i felt with saif he made a choice in that internal struggle he had. he made a choice, i am the son, clan, blood is powerful in the middle east and in north africa. he made the choice. if my father is under attack, the my brothers will die i'll stay and die with him. that makes him in some ways the most dangerous.

he's ration enamel. coherent. he's thoughtful and udss the west. he's thrown his lot in with his father. unless there's a way he can be separated from them which seems highly unlikely it seems he'll suffer the fate of his father. >> do you think that the gadhafis will fight to the bitter end? >> i do think that. i think we sometimes forget that moammar gadhafi, delusional as he may be, suffers from delusion rooted in reality. he's not mubarak a second or third generation bureaucratic guy in the military. he's a first generation revolutionary found own the model of castro or on the model of nassir in egypt. he believed deeply in the revolution. he suspects what he sees now as a counter revolution not a liberal uprising against him natural means that he intends to fight to the death. do you have an option b if this fails. i have three option.

live and die in libya. option b live and die in libya. option c live and die in libya. was that posturing for seven years? possibly. my own belief is that he spent seven years trying to be a reformer and in the end was sexual l swallowed up in clan loyalty. i think this is a clan family and i tribal land that will fight to the end for what they believe. foolish and delusional and oppressive. >> you know there are people who look at you and people like you who say you became tools of one of the most repressive regimes of the world. >> yes. let me say two things about that. one is that there are americans

representing business interest, government interests all over the world in burma, in saudi arabia, in iraq and pakistan who represent nothing other than an interest in exploiting for their own benefit those regimes. my presence and my presence in the gadhafi foundation on the international advisory board has been from the beginning to work and i static long term dicta to -- dictarial regime. so say we resigned because gadhafi and the regime are not for change and then to go back and rewrite history back in 2006 and 2007 when the bush administration was working hard to create new alliances, to send an ambassador and saying those of us in libya trying torque internally for change is more than dangerous and people have

to ask then should we never go to regimes which are di dictatorial. >> are you hopeful for libya? >> i'm torn. i'm hopeful when people rise up in the name of freedom and demand self-determination and demand freedom. >> up sound like you think there will be chaos. >> my fear there is, partly because the world is assuming it's cairo all over again that we're overlooking the presence of al qaeda down the line. that we're overlooking the presence of a possible civil war. that we're overlooking the possibility that tribe aal rivalries will come out when gadhafi is gone. my fear is that we have not yet established the foundations for democracy and here, you've written so eloquently about this, we know historically that most revolutions in democracy's names have not achieved revolution. in part because it takes

protesters, brave and courageous protesters to make a revolution built it takes citizens to make a democracy. that's a long slow process. that process has not yet gotten under way in libya. it's under way in cairo. not yet in libya. i hope it will. i'm ambivalent. i pray for and am excited by the turn of events but also worried as a historian and a political scientist that too much is expected with too little foundation for real progress towards democracy. >> benjamin barber, thank you so much. we'll be back. >> you see this very clear the west took off first and how the west is following and catching up. how will this continue?

i'm candy crowley and here are today's top stories. supporters of libyan leader moammar gadhafi celebrate in tripoli's green square after the government claimed to be in control of several cities. but witnesses tell cnn opposition force remain in control of key areas. a small british diplomatic team is in benghazi libya talking with the country's rebels. negotiations are under way to secure the release of eight

british special forces troops being detained in eastern libya by opposition forces. the u.s. state department is warning americans against traveling to yemen. today's advisory says the threat level in yemen is extremely high due to terrorist activities and civil unrest. comes the same day as suspected al qaeda members killed four yemeni soldiers. in bahrain there was a large but peaceful protest outside the palace where the country's cabinet met today. it was the first time a demonstration had been allowed at the site. protesters chanted slogans calling for toufter of bahrain's prime minister. 12 people were killed and five others injured and i mine explosion in southeastern afghanistan. the blast occurred when a vehicle that people were traveling in hit a land mine. the dead include two children and five women. those are your top stories. up next much more "fareed zakaria gps" and then reliable sources at the top of the hour.

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special. it's another in our ongoing series restoring the american dream. this one is called getting back to number one. you can catch it at 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. the idea is this. politicians love to talk about how exceptional this country is and america is exceptional. but in many places where the united states once ranked number one it has fallen in some cases fallen quite far. america's enrollment rate for elementary school ranks 79th in the world. we are 12th in the percentage of college graduates among rich countries. america's 15-year-olds are ranked 19th in science, 24th in math. our infrastructure ranks 23rd in the world. we're 41st in the world on infant mortality. 49th on life expectancy. where are we first in the world? well on external debt. we have more debt than other nations. there's lots of positive places

we're number one. we're still the world's largest economy. we have the largest military. the most dynamic technology companies. highly entrepreneurial climate. but the rhetoric of american politicians does not seem to match the new reality. so how did we get to where we are? we begin the special with hans rosling. he has an amazing way to make statistics come alive. in this case bubbles on the graph. the bubbles represent a country. the vertical axis is life expect jancy. the horse zont alaxis is income. we start here in 1954 right after the korean war. >> and at this time united states was on top. europe had fallen behind and japan was trying to catch up here and interestingly a small country, singapore was just behind. latin america was in between and china and india were still down

here with low life expectancy and with low-incomes but they had gained their independence and look what happened after 1954. here. u.s. continues to lead but europe is closing in. japan there, they make this amazing catch up together with singapore. here china and india got education more families and health before they start this amazing economic growth where they catch up together with more and more emerging economies and they keep up the speed through the last economic crisis and here we are today. 2010. what is most interesting here is if you look at the replay, you see this very clear how the west took off first and then how the rest is following and catching up. and how will this continue? let's make a projection into the future by going backwards first. this is where china was in 1980. very low-income over there.

u.s. was over here at the other end. we never thought this would happen that china in 30 years would move so much faster than the united states. now, if both countries would keep the same speed in economic growth in the coming 30 years where would the u.s. end up? it will end up there. where would china end up? they would end up here, the same spot. >> so how did everyone catch up? well frequent gps guest and harvard historian niall ferguson explains. if you take a 500 tame foreign minister it's quite simple. for 500 years the west, not just the united states, the west patented six killer applications that set it apart from the rest and left the rest essentially stagnating for half a millennium. they were open sores. they were able to be downloaded by any nonwestern society. the first to do it was japan.

and so what we're seeing is the fulfillment of a roughly century long process whereby one asian country after another has downloaded the killer ply occasions of competition, of modern science, of the rule of law and private property rights, of modern medicine, of the consumer society and work ethic. those six things together are the secret sauce of western civilization. we will explain what the united states can do in lying of all these challenges. tonight at 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. you will hear the whole story, much more from rosling and ferguson, the founders of foursquare and many others. and as i said i'll tell you my fixes for how to get america back on top. all in our special, restoring the american dream, getting back to number one. 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. eastern and pacific tonight. it's also my cover story in "time" magazine this week. check it out on time.com.

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our question this week from the gps challenge is, pope benedict has a new book coming out. in it which group does he exonerate for an act or acts. jews for killing christ. muslims for 9/11. christians for the crusades. aztecs for human sacrifice. stay tuned and we'll tell you the right answer. go to cnn.com/gps for ten more questions. i'm thrilled to announce the launch of the global public square blog.

there you'll find smart, fun surprising posts that will change your view of the world and inform you. you'll be able to spark up conversations with world thinkers, the occasional global leader and one another. it's a place where you and i together can make sense of the dazzle events unfolding around us every day. you can find us at cnn.com/gps. now, the book of the week. jonathan powell's "the new machiavelli." he's the highly intelligent former chief of staff to britain's prime minister tony blair. it's two books in one. an insider's view of live at 10 downing street but also a sort of a super self-help book on how to wield power. very intelligent. and now for the last look. if you've been wondering as i'm sure many of you have what to get your favorite dictator for his next birthday i have a suggestion. for the man who has everything

this one comes straight from the files of the recently deposed egyptian president hosni mubarak. mubarak was known as a sharp dresser who thought rather highly of himself. what dictator doesn't. we didn't know to what extent until we saw this. this looks like a regular mubarak in a suit. focus in on those fancy pin stripes. look closer. it's unmistakable. mubarak had his name printed across his suit over and over again in the pin stripes. his name is in the pin stripes. by the way we did a little research. turns out a suit like that could set you back $25,000. mubarak's orders for the suit slowed after his assets were frozen. if you have $25,000 to spare and want one of those suits go to our website. the correct answer was